the ensnaring blue blossoms. Pepe's half-soliloquising comment precisely interprets the Spanish estimate of stalking:--"The first stag I ever saw shot with his head down!" Other countries, other standards; but there is a ring of sterling chivalry in it too. The idea conveyed is that the noble stag should meet his death, only when duly forewarned of danger and bounding in wild career o'er bush and brake. Without unduly trespassing on our Spanish friends' susceptibilities, we have nevertheless enjoyed such mornings as this. To begin with, that hour of breaking day is ever delicious to spend afield. Therein one observes to best advantage the wild beasts, undisturbed and following their secret, solitary lives--one learns more in that hour than in all the other twenty-three. One seems almost to associate with deer, so near can the troops of hinds and small staggies be approached; and, moreover, there may be afforded the advantage of selecting some splendid head afar, and thus commencing a stalk which, believe me, does not always prove easy. Yonder comes a fox, trotting straight in from his night's hunting in the distant marisma. Let him come on within fifty yards, and then give him a bit of a fright--it is a wild goose he drops as he turns to fly! A single glint of something ruddy catches the eye; this the glass shows to be a sunray playing on the pelt of a prowling lynx, hateful of daylight and hurrying junglewards. Rarely are these nocturnals seen thus, after sun-up, and not for many seconds will the spectacle last; for no animal is more intensely habituated to concealment, or hates so much to move even a few yards in the open. Following are two or three incidents selected as illustrative of this matutinal work:-- ...A really fine stag--already against the glory of the eastern light, I have counted thirteen points and there may be more. Half an hour later we have gained a position--not without infinite manoeuvres, including a crawl absolutely flat across forty yards of bog and black mire--a position that in five more minutes should secure to us that trophy. The five hinds that, before it was fully light, had been in the Royal company, have already, long ago, passed away in the scrub on our right, and give us now no further concern. Never should hinds be thus lightly regarded! The slowly approaching stag stops to nibble a golden broom. He is already almost within shot--seconds must decide his fate--when a triple bark, petulant and defiant, breaks the silence behind. Those five hinds, sauntering round, have gone under our wind, and now ... the landscape is vacant. [Illustration: APRIL.] [Illustration: JUNE.] "Hinds only bark at a _persona_," remarks Dominguez, as we turn homewards, "never at any other _bicho_." The stag knew that too. But it was a curious way of putting it.